


Happily Ever After

by Imogen_Penn



Series: Times Like These [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Feels, I Don't Even Know, I'm Sorry, Sexy Times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:19:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imogen_Penn/pseuds/Imogen_Penn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in response to a tumbr prompt. There are lots of ways to find your happily ever after. For Darcy, this is one. But it isn't the one she would have picked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happily Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> I emphasize both the AU and "I'm Sorry" tags. Feels free to plug your ears and go "lalalalalala this never really happens" when you're done. Also, inkandash and lovely tumblr anon, this one's for you.

He was taking it remarkably well, and that was what worried her.

General Ross had been working himself up into higher and higher levels of impotent rage over the last few years with the growing popularity of the Avengers in general and the Hulk specifically.

She should have known, they _all_ should have known, that when he fell silent a few months ago, it wasn’t because he had given up.

But things were so _good_. Steve was expecting a baby with his new wife, and the team was running smoothly. Even Clint had avoided throwing himself of buildings for the last little while. So they were starting to let their guard down a little, starting to feel like there was real life to be lived between brief periods of madness.

Bruce was starting to talk about kids.

Not seriously, not in a real planning way, but in little offhand comments like “I’m saying right now Darce, no kid of mine is _ever_ going to get away with shit like that” after sitting next to a screaming toddler in a fancy restaurant for an hour. Or “I would totally dress our kid up as an ewok for Halloween.”

Darcy never pushed it, but it always left her smiling for hours afterwards in a way she knew Bruce was aware of.

So they weren’t paying much attention to their surroundings as they were running through the Park one weekend. They didn’t notice how they hadn’t passed anyone else for a while, didn’t hear the rustling up in the trees.

And then all at once, Bruce stopped stone still and reached up to his neck.

“Hey,” he said absently, “ouch.” And he pulled something out of his skin. Darcy jogged back curiously, taking the small green tipped dart from his hand.

“Bruce,” she started, “what the hell is…”

But he let out a blood curdling moan, doubling over and clutching his arms.

“Darcy,” he managed in a gravelly voice.

But Darcy was _way_ ahead of him. She could see the way his skin was rippling and his eyes clouding over.

“Rule two?” she asked sharply, “there’s nothing I can…?”

“Go,” he cut her off.

“I’ll get help” she said, pausing only to place a hand on his shoulder and whisper “love you” before she took off at a sprint.

But the Hulk could cover ground way faster than any human could run, and whatever had done this to Bruce, it wasn’t a normal big green day, because the Hulk liked her just fine usually. But today, he was barrelling after her down the trail, yelling loud enough to shake her eardrums until she thought they would burst.

She had pushed her panic button frantically the minute she had realised what was happening, and she thought she could see Iron Man’s con trail coming towards her, but she was out of time.

With a bone shaking reverberation, the Hulk landed dead in front of her, forcing her to skid to a halt.

“Hey there big guy,” she tried to say calmly, “remember me? I’m Darcy. No smashing.” It was worth a try anyways. But he uprooted a tree with a blistering roar and swung it wildly above his head.

A branch, probably a solid foot thick, broke off and caught her across the chest, knocking her hard into the ground. She had a brief moment of panic, struggling for air, and then everything went black.

+

+

She woke up, blinking in surprise to find herself still alive. And, after a moment, surprised again that she was in her own bed in the little house out in the woods, not in a hospital.

“Darcy?” Bruce was there, that wasn’t so surprising. She smiled at him as he jumped up from his chair pulled up near the bed, looking disheveled and worn.

“Hey there,” she said reaching out to take his hand.

“Hey,” he said softly, pressing her hand to his lips briefly, “how’re you feeling?”

“Not too bad, actually,” she said, gingerly pulling herself upright. Her shoulder and ribs twinged a bit, but otherwise she just felt a bit dizzy. “What happened?”

“The med team said you just had the wind knocked out of you and had a little bump on the head,” he smiled tightly at her, “didn’t even need to keep you in the med ward.”

“Well see, there you go,” she tried brightly, knowing exactly what was coming, “and people say the Hulk is scary.”

Quite unexpectedly, Bruce simply nodded, paused, and went on talking. “It was Ross, they think.” He said fairly calmly, “he’d been developing a serum to unleash the Hulk. Tony was able to put the other guy out pretty quickly though, with those tranqs we’d been working on. And the chemical is obviously still in development because it worked its way out of my system pretty quickly.”

“So…you’re okay?” she said, feeling oddly off balance.

“Yeah,” he said.

“And I’m okay?” she continued.

“Yes,” he squeezed her hand.

“So how come you’re not kissing me right now?” she asked.

He smiled at her, “no idea.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing her hair behind her ear, and leaned over her to press his lips against her. His hand was braced on the other side of her ribs, avoiding any contact with her bruised shoulder.

Darcy was havening none of it. She trailed her fingers up to run through his hair, wrapping around the back of his neck and pulling him closer.

She had been so worried, from the moment he doubled over on the trail, that he was going to run off on her. They had made it so far and, despite all Bruce’s worries, the Hulk had never been a threat to her. In fact he had saved her life on a number of occasions. But this, this exact thing, the Hulk being angry _at her_ , injuring her, was everything he had feared.

If he was going to be okay with it, she was not going to give him time or space to change his mind about that.

She pulled his bottom lip between her teeth, pulling him towards her with one hand and snaking the other down his back to hook through a belt loop and pull him down towards her.

With a low noise, he shifted so his knee fell between hers, his arm still carefully braced beside her, but his hips now pressed against hers, the familiar alignment never ceasing to give her a low thrill.

Before Bruce, she had exclusively been with boys. Bruce was a man. As a lover, he was confident, skilled and patient. It meant that there was never a lack of variety in their sex life. He could be aggressive and forceful sometimes, leaving her breathless and boneless when he was done. He could also turn over control to her entirely. They had had a lot of time, by now, to figure each other out, to know each other’s bodies and moods and limits and likes.

She couldn’t remember it ever being quite like this before.

After the third time that he gently set her hands up beside her head when she reached for him, she acquiesced, lying passively if not silently, as his hands ghosted over her bruised ribs, his lips feathered against the bruise on her forehead.

He unbuttoned her shirt, an old button down of his that was soft and frayed with age, his fingers barely touching her skin as he carefully pulled it out from under her. Her muscles jumped and skittered along with her heartbeat as he trailed his fingers through the valley of her bared breasts, down along the firm line of her abdominals, resting his palm across her panties, feeling the heat and moisture at the juncture of her thighs.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, his lips mapping the sparse constellation of freckles dotted across her stomach. She thought maybe he was trying to memorise the shape of her, the feel of her, as his fingers brushed down the curve of her arms. The endless contact but lack of pressure was starting to drive her crazy and she canted her hips up towards him with a low cry as his fingers skated over her cleft, rough through the damp cotton of her panties.

When he slowly, reverently pulled her panties down her bare legs and pressed his mouth to her, she was surprised at the electric thrill that ran through her. She hadn’t realised how close he had already driven her to the edge. She pulled away from it, hesitant for this to end.

He was careful, delicate, when he braced himself above her, pushing into her slowly, watching her closely as her eyes closed and her head tipped back.

No matter how hard she pulled at his hair, how hard she tilted her pelvis to meet him, he wouldn’t be shaken from his slow rocking pace, keeping her constantly at the edge but never pushing her over. He leaned down to capture her low moans with his mouth, his eyes never leaving her face.

She knew.

She couldn’t, wouldn’t let herself think it at the time. She wanted this to be what it was, to let the moment hang in the air. But she knew what she saw in his eyes. Knew what words he was burying in her neck as he reached between them, finding her clit and rocketing her over the edge with a few practiced brushed of his thumb. Knew why tears were welling up in her eyes as she clutched him to her when his hips stuttered against hers and he finally let himself sink into her chest.

She knew what she was going to find the next morning. An empty bed and empty words on a white piece of paper.

She knew he had been saying goodbye.

+

+

It had been the worst kind of betrayal, when Bruce had left. Not the leaving itself, although she sometimes thought that maybe she could have stopped him.  They had spent so long fighting to become a unit, to trust each other enough to listen, really listen, to what the other was saying. Bruce had fought so hard to let someone else, to let _her_ into his life.

And then he went and made the biggest decision in either of their lives without talking to her. And he did it because of a fear that she thought they had already talked about, thought they had worked past.

That was what still stung, all these years later. But only sometimes.

She knew that he still talked to Tony sometimes, was glad that he wasn’t alone again, not the same way he was the last time. She was glad to know he was alright. That still meant something to her. She still had his picture propped up in the bookcase in the quiet little house in the woods where she still lived.

She had planted a garden in the containment room, a big green house of a better kind now.

And she knew that, through Tony, Bruce would know she wasn’t living there alone anymore. Hadn’t been for years. And, by now, she knew Bruce wouldn’t be coming back.

So maybe her happily ever after didn’t look like she thought it would. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t happy.

She heard the sound of the front door sliding open from the kitchen and smiled. She walked out into the living room, flopping down on the couch and patting the seat next to her.

“Hello love,” she said in a familiar greeting.

And just like every day, the sandy haired little boy with big grey eyes climbed up beside her, pressed a sticky kiss against her cheek, and said “Hello mum.”


End file.
